BUTYRATE SUPPLEMENTATION TO GESTATING SOWS AND PIGLETS

Part I, piglets point of view

Piglet litter size has been increasing constantly due to the hyperprolific sows, although the survival rate of piglets during lactaction has not increased in the same way. The higher number of piglets born implies lower average litter weight and less access to the teats determining at the end, lower weight at weaning. Besides, piglets often experience growth reduction immediately after weaning due to multiple stress factors associated with weaning. Several studies have demonstrated that pre-weaning administration of butyrate to young piglets has great potential in enhancing piglet post-weaning health and performance (Kotunia et al., 2004; Le Gall et al., 2009). However, scarce literature has been focused on the effect of butyrate on sows and their offspring. Lu et al. (2012) did two studies, in the first study, piglets were orally gavaged with 0.3% butyrate from day 4 after birth to weaning (day 21) the results showed that butyrate increased ADG by 13% compared to saline treated controls. In the second study, showed that piglets born from sows that were supplemented with 0.3% butyrate during the last trimester of gestation had a 15% higher (P<0.05) body weight at 12 weeks than controls. Butyrate supplementation to gestating sows and piglets enhanced postweaning growth performance, which may be mediated by increased substrate oxidation in butyrate treated animals. The higher BW and ADG of butyrate supplemented pigs from butyrate-supplemented sows is consistent with the earlier observation by Le Gall et al. (2009) and Jang et al. (2016) that post-weaning weight and feed efficiency was improved when piglets were supplemented with butyrate before weaning.